That could actually make me resub, I don't get all this faction pride bullshit.

Me neither, especially considering how poor and forced the lore in this regard is, heck my character is a deathknight and champion of 3 dozen factions that represent an interracial effort to beat something.

could be a nice option, but would make very little sense in dungeons and scenarios that differ depending on which faction that runs it.

The way this worked in Rift was based on whoever was Party leader, so in this case if Horde was party leader then the dungeon would assume everyone was Horde and it would be the Horde "version", and vice versa. It would break immersion, but most everything in WoW does.

I'd love to see this idea implemented for PvE instances and arenas. From a lore point of view, nobody can tell me I can't be friends with an Undead Mage or a Blood Elf Paladin. We could have met in the Argent Tournament, had some duels / jousts, and have become BFFs. The lore has nothing to do with random heroes having to party up only with other random heroes that wear the same flag you do. Sunwalker Dezco and Anduin can be friends. Velen and Lady Liadrin are friends. Thrall and Jaina are friends. Hell, if you see any faction outside the Alliance and Horde, they involve races of both factions. Argent Crusade, Knights of the Ebon Blade, Scourge, Earthen Ring, Emerald Circle, Twilight's Hammer... They have Horde and Alliance races there and nobody bats an eye.

Mechanics-wise, this could only efficiently be implemented in scenarios, dungeons, raids and arenas. Questing is out of the picture because a lot of zones are about the faction war. Battlegrounds wouldn't work because it's also about "RvB". But when you are in a fight against the Thunder King, you will make a deal with anyone in order to survive. As with arenas, they have nothing to do with lore. It's just a random group of people versus random group of people. Varian did arenas with a Blood Elf teammate. Thrall also did arenas with different races. Why can't I do the same when I am NOT a slave to anyone?

I would also limit this to RealID / battle tag friends only, because they are obviously my friends. If Alliance player gets grouped with a random Horde player, one can easily get pissed at the other because he ganked him when he was low level or stole his rare mob or whatnot.

Are there still players who somehow haven't gotten around to making characters for both factions, after all these years? Seems weird to blame Blizzard's existing system when it could be argued that the fault lies with the players who are apparently unwilling to take action to change the situations they put themselves in.

Are there still players who somehow haven't gotten around to making characters for both factions, after all these years? Seems weird to blame Blizzard's existing system when it could be argued that the fault lies with the players who are apparently unwilling to take action to change the situations they put themselves in.

It's not about making characters for both factions, it's about having friends on one side when you're on the other side. I would argue it's pretty fucking stupid to have two of the same character (roughly) on each faction to appease an outdated and illogical segregation imposed on you. Most of us do have multiple characters on both factions, but we do tend to have a main character and if that main character is on one faction while our friends are on another, then we can't play the game with them.

The fact that you think the real issue here can be solved by having an alt on the other faction shows that you really don't understand what the issue is.

Personally I believe that if you're friends with someone on either side, you should be able to do dungeons, raids, rated BG's and arena together. Hell, even questing should be possible (although that would require more neutral hubs across the continents).

There isn't a lot of reason to keep Horde and Alliance so separated. I mean, there's a lot of friendship/truces/agreements between prominent lore characters across both factions so I don't see how the same logic can't apply to friends on either side of the fence. Another point is we usually fight a common enemy so in that regard it makes sense too.

Are there still players who somehow haven't gotten around to making characters for both factions, after all these years? Seems weird to blame Blizzard's existing system when it could be argued that the fault lies with the players who are apparently unwilling to take action to change the situations they put themselves in.

I took a break from WoW and many of my friends had transferred to horde. So I made a pally leveled it to 90 got it to a 500 item level and guess what I don't like pally. So he just sits in the capital doing nothing.

I am sure as hell not going to level another toon. I have 6 90s on alliance side already.

Factions do nothing but make for a half-assed story that never goes anywhere because gameplay requires a "balance" to accomodate the playerbase between said factions. You can do rated pvp as arena or "war-games" BGs against anyone and world pvp can be held in more prevalent zones like Gurubashi arena etc. Factions split the story in half and resolve nothing. Yes this is Warcraft, and until MoP the Alliance and Horde were at WAR with every big threat coming to Azeroth, not solely each other. Gameplay prevented them from doing a faction war properly, no one gains or loses anything and the loser walks away unscathed while the victor walks away empty-handed? You call that a compelling war story? I call that a turd-filled toilet of a story.
The more they separate themselves from this idiotic faction war as the "war" in warcraft, the better everything will be for everyone other than griefers, gankers and other scrubs that only play the game it give other people a hard time.

this, faction are basically useless, no one win no one lose and everyone cry so crossfaction does 0 damage to gameplay and potentially solve alot of issues. Lorewise we are mercenaries not faction soldiers so a small story that explain why adventurers can crossfaction will easly solve the problem.
I'm all in for that maybe we will see less "blizzard hate my faction" threads.

How about we let the parenting of kids to... their parents? No, seriously, World of Warcraft is a videogame. Gaming it's supposed to be a fun activity (if you have that fun through challenges, social interactions, etc is completely up to you). Not some kind of "School of Hard Knocks about the Real World".

It just needs to be for friends to run with each other regardless of the damned faction. In the story we see people with friends on the other side of the faction divide all the time. Pugging and the like would be a nightmare when the alliance players decide to stop healing the horde ones and vice versa just to be dbags, but when you're with your friends, what diff does it make? People can play the race they like rather than the stupid faction and it fits in with the gameplay driven "we're going to be working together now" anyways. There really isn't a reason to be a hardnose about it, there are dozens of benefits and practically no downsides to it.

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Originally Posted by Maneo

I have said this many times but as you can see from this tread, the pvp peoples would throw a tantrum.

They always throw a tantrum about anything and everything. not a day goes by when pvp peoples are whining and bitching about everything under the sun. All they do is bitch and moan, and screw up things for the rest of us. They will be bitching and moaning regardless of whether or not people can group with their friends cross-faction. This is a non-issue. They all seemed to think MoP's faction war somehow resulted in the expansion being more pvp oriented (when it didn't), who really cares what they think anyways?
Successful, rated pvp won't be changed anyways, as you face your faction all the time. griefers, duelers and zone disrupters might get butt hurt, but anything that drives them from the game is a good thing.

If it's not an elf, leave it on the shelf.Night Elf Independence Movement

EDIT: all instance stuff would work same as now. for world, make cross-faction groups attackable to both factions? (mark them yellow as when you're pvp flagged on pve server maybe?). i'd really love to see that happening.

They always throw a tantrum about anything and everything. not a day goes by when pvp peoples are whining and bitching about everything under the sun. All they do is bitch and moan, and screw up things for the rest of us. They will be bitching and moaning regardless of whether or not people can group with their friends cross-faction. This is a non-issue. They all seemed to think MoP's faction war somehow resulted in the expansion being more pvp oriented (when it didn't), who really cares what they think anyways?
Successful, rated pvp won't be changed anyways, as you face your faction all the time. griefers, duelers and zone disrupters might get butt hurt, but anything that drives them from the game is a good thing.

I could not have said it better myself. I wonder how many of the people here fall into the greifers and disrupters, and that is why they are so apposed?

Absolutely. I have friends who are Horde and Alliance, and while the implementation of cross-realm grouping has made it easier to group with them (now I only have to have ONE high level Ally char instead of several), it's still a royal pain. Gear disparities have lead to everything from one of us having to compromise on what we wanted to do ("Well, I wanted to do LFR with you, but I don't have a high enough ilvl to do current tier... wanna faceroll heroics?") or just plain not being able to play together ("We really need a tank for our raid tonight, but my tank buddy is still in greens and blues"). It's still far more time consuming in MOP to keep two characters kitted out in current gear than it was in Wrath or Cata, and I just don't have the stomach to cap points on both characters every week. I just don't.

Put me in a human costume for all I care when my tauren groups with my Ally friends. Put his gnome in an orc suit when he groups with my Horde friends. I don't care how you spin it.

Gating friends from playing together at this point in the game just doesn't make good business sense.